Sunday, 21 June 2015

Peter Sellers
was a more talented actor than many people realise.Say his name these days, and a large majority
of people would smile and begin to ape his most famous film character,
Inspector Clouseau.The ‘Pink Panther’
films were US productions, made when the flame of the British film industry had
finally guttered out.These films were
OK, but not a patch on some of his earlier work.I have already discussed ‘I’m Alright Jack’
and ‘Heavens Above!’ in the course of this blog, both of which were good
British films and starred Sellers as strong leading characters.Of course, he was also an excellent support
character in one of my top five favourite films ‘The Ladykillers’.However, the true test of an actor is to be
able to successfully bring a lifeless character onto the screen. By lifeless, I
mean one that is boring, one that has no charisma and not a great deal to say.
In ‘The Battle of the Sexes’ (1959), Sellers does just this job with the role
of Mr Martin. Mr Martin is a Chief Clerk in an old family tweed firm called the
House of MacPherson.Their working
practices are Dickensian.He is quiet,
mild mannered and he indulges in no vices.He has given his life to the MacPhersons and he requires no recognition
or reward – only for his life to continue on in the same vein.I think that it is fair to say that Mr Martin
is the polar opposite of Mr Sellers.In
real life, he was known to have been a very charismatic man.Liz Fraser writes about him in her
autobiography (“Liz Fraser…and Other Characters”). She says that he was a man of passions – the
latest technology, cars, cameras and women were acquired relentlessly and never
lasted long. But her telling line, when discussing his womanising is “Peter
being Peter, you just forgave him.” To be able to put all of that strength of
personality to one side and to play Mr Martin so convincingly shows how
talented he was.To share the screen
with such a larger than life co-star as Robert Morley – and be the one that all
eyes are on – it is a deft feat.

Sellers by @aitchteee

So it is with
regret that I have to admit that ‘The Battle of the Sexes’ is an appalling
film.Despite Sellers’ highly watchable
performance, the storyline is mean spirited.When old man MacPherson dies, his son (Morley) travels home to Edinburgh
to take over the business. While on the Sleeper train down from London, he
meets an American business consultant called Angela Barrows (Constance
Cummings).He takes her on at the House
of MacPherson in order to modernise and rationalise the business. Her ideas and
methods distress Martin, who sees no need for change and considers Barrows’
methods to go against everything his beloved old Mr MacPherson stood for. While
things are initially going her way, Angela Barrows is confident, clever and articulate.However, when Martin begins to quietly
sabotage her work she plays the “I’m just a woman” card in a painfully sexist
turn of events.This is a blatant attack
on women’s attempts to forge careers – and quite possibly an attack on
Americans and their fancy new methods too.

After the end
of World War Two, women were shoved back into the home and told to give up
their jobs to men returning from the forces. Films, magazines and advertising
gave propaganda support to this idea, the most virtuous women depicted as
housewives and mothers. But of course
another compartment of the Pandora’s Box of women’s liberation had been opened
by the war. Progress continued to be
made by trailblazing women in a range of jobs. This film appears to be a
rallying call to clerks everywhere to help put a stop to it. I don’t believe
that Angela Barrows’ nationality is a coincidence either. In the 1950s, Britain was dependent on US aid
to get the country back on its feet.
Their money and their culture began to infiltrate our culture, slowly
starting the globalisation that we are subject to today. Already the loss of the old ways was
beginning to be mourned.

Sadly, I don’t
think that the subject matter is as historic as I would like it to be. Globalisation has won hands down and there
are still some businessmen with archaic attitudes to women. We continually hear
about the need for more women in business and those that are successful face
many more pressures than their male counterparts. But we have won a few battles on the way and
taken a few steps forward.

‘The Battle of
the Sexes’ reminds me of the time at school, when the class bully singles
someone out with a comment that is so cruelly witty that you can’t help but
laugh along despite yourself. But
really, should this film be on television until the war of the sexes is finally
over, and we can view this impartially as a historic record of what once was?

Friday, 12 June 2015

In 1946, Harriet Clavering's husband, John, is de-mobbed from the navy, and he returns home to the English midlands town of Torchester. That night, he goes out to the pub...and he never returns home. Almost 40 years later, Harriet is a respected local Labour councillor and a CND activist. She continues to wonder about what happened to her husband and how different her life might have been if he had not disappeared. She encourages her grandaughter Caroline, who is also showing a keen interest in politics and the CND movement.

Meanwhile, Harriet's son, Charlie, is at a loss for something to do. He is a carpenter, keen on DIY and is only happy when he is building. When Caroline jokingly suggests that he build them a nuclear bunker in the garden, he takes her up on the idea and begins to dig a large hole. Work stops however, when he discovers human remains. Who is the body in the garden? Where did John Clavering go to? Is Harriet about to be arrested?

This light hearted novella skips between events in 1946 and 1985 - from Siren Suits to Doc Marten boots.

Extracts:

They
settled down to read a set of meeting minutes. Charlie sauntered back in the
room, hands in pockets. He lifted the
cream net curtain and stared out into the garden. He let out a deep sigh, retrieved a
handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
Then he lifted the net curtain again and repeated the sigh.

“Dad,
you sound like you’ve got a puncture.
Will you please sit down?
Here.” She handed him The
Observer. “Have a look at that for a
bit.”

Charlie
thrust his hands back into his pockets. “No, I’m not bothered, thank you.” He sat down in the armchair and began to
stare at the wooden fire surround.

Harriet
took off her glasses and pointed them at him. “You know, you could always go
and see if Margaret would like a hand in the kitchen. Surely you can do more than just slice the
meat.”

He
continued to stare at the fire surround, engrossed in the scrollwork. It looked good, but he often wondered aloud
if he could have done it better.

“No, I
can’t think of anything. He’s done
everything. I can’t move in that kitchen
for cabinets.”

Caroline
thought, seeking out something for him to do.
There was so much friction about the house when he was bored. She glanced down at the CND papers, then
nudged Harriet. “Dad? What about building us a nuclear bunker in
the garden?”

Harriet
began to suck on the arm of her glasses.
The left hand corner of her mouth gave a small twitch.

“A
what?” Charlie jumped out of his fire surround reverie.

“A
bunker. For when the bomb drops. Mind
you, I’m not sure I want to survive it.
But it might come in handy. Dig a
big trench, stick a couple of bunks in it and a storeroom full of tinned
food. Cover it all over and make a
door.”

“I’m
not sure that would work. Would it
work?” He was considering the idea
carefully.

***********

Dora
entered the back door of the Duke of Wellington looking like a corpse in a
peroxide wig. This cold had overtaken her body rapidly, making her nose glisten
and her throat rasp.

“Blimey
Dora! Are you sure about this?”

The
landlord studied her whitened face as he emerged from the cellar. At once he
was pleased at his barmaid’s dedication and concerned for his own health. He worried about the health of his customers
come to that, didn’t want them staying in bed of an evening.

“Yes,
yes I’ll be alright. Rather be here then
sat inside looking at them awful curtains.
Anyway all the fag smoke might do me good, help me get it off my chest.”
She sniffed deeply, making the Landlord wrinkle his own nose in return.

“Here,
have a tot of whiskey on me, perk you up.”

“Ta.”
She knocked the contents of the tumbler that he offered her in one gulp, then
blew her nose.

“You
got a good supply of hankies? I can lend you a couple if need be.”

“I
brought half a dozen. Mind you, that
one’s down already.” She looked into her
handkerchief and grimaced. “At least
it’s on the move.”

Dora
applied lipstick to her dried out lips and went to open the doors for the
drinkers already queuing outside. The customers were mainly sympathetic to
Dora’s ill health. That is except for
Mrs Sim, who declared loudly that she remembered the flu at the end of the last
war and her fervent hope that Dora wasn’t spreading certain death. Dora was stood two more tots of whiskey. One of these came from a man that she hadn’t
met before. As the stranger expressed
such concern, she felt obliged to ask him about himself, although she really
couldn’t care if he was the Grim Reaper himself.

Thursday, 4 June 2015

‘The Happy
Family’ (1952) stars Stanley Holloway and Kathleen Harrison; with fabulous
supporting roles for Dandy Nichols and George Cole. And a rabbit called
Winston. It is a film about the Festival
of Britain, which took place in 1951. It offers an angle on the much-loved-in-retrospect
festival that I am not so familiar with
– this being the argument against why it should not have taken place. It was something of a disappointment to find
some of my favourite actors working for the anti-festival side – but having
finally seen the film I can forgive them. This is because it is very funny with some
absolutely corking scenes and hilarious exchanges. My particular favourite goes something like
this:

Married
daughter: “We’re expecting your first
grandchild.”

Mother,
repeating an oft used phrase: “Oooh I never did!”

Teenage
daughter: “Oh Mum, yes you did.”

Stanley and
Kathleen play Mr and Mrs Lord. They live
on the south bank of the Thames near Waterloo Station. Mr Lord is in the process of retiring from
his job as an engine driver while Mrs Lord runs their corner shop, humorously
called “The House of Lords.” Despite having
lost a son in the war, they are contented with their lot. However, the film is set in March 1951 and
the opening of the festival is just 6 weeks away. Planners at the festival’s
South Bank site, just across the road, realise that they have made an error in
the measurements. A road leading into
the site, which was supposed to run past the Lords’ house and shop, will
actually need to go straight through it.
The Lords are told that they must leave immediately, and they are
offered compensation and a new abode in Harrow.
As you might imagine, Mr and Mrs Lord are having none of it.

Stanley Holloway by @aitchteee

In scenes that
are sometimes reminiscent of ‘Passport to Pimlico’; when the authorities are so
inept that they can’t do anything to help the Lords appeal, they revolt.They barricade themselves in and refuse to
budge when officials and police come to evict the family.Both Harrison and Holloway are given rousing
monologues about their lives and their plight, they identify themselves as the
underdog, knowing that the British love it when the underdog bites back.

But what this
film boils down to is an emotional complaint about the Festival of Britain in
relation to the contemporary housing problem. It shows the course that
opponents to the event took – they drew attention to the spending taking place
in relation to that needed to build homes to replace those lost in the
Blitz. The Festival official who first
visits the Lords to break the news (Mr Filch, played by Naunton Wayne)
re-iterates that £6 million is being spent – and this is money that will be
written off, there is no chance of recouping most of it. The Lords’ eldest daughter actually states at
this point that this money could have been used to build many homes. From this
point onwards, we know where we stand and where this is going. We are being shown that the Lords’ home
represents several thousand homes that were not built because of the festival –
that people were being denied their own castles because of this frippery. Winston Churchill was famously against the
Festival, overseeing its complete dismantling on his return to power later in 1951. That Mr Lord has named his beloved pet rabbit
Winston is perhaps another indication of where the loyalties lie in this film.

In the end,
the Lords win their battle and their house is left as an island in the new road
scheme. I can’t help thinking that they would come to regret their new
situation. But it was interesting to see
that there was some rebellion against this glorious opportunity for Britain to
enjoy itself after many dark years. Well, we like to have a moan, we British, don’t
we? And this is one big moan, delivered
through the medium of film. And I have
to say, I love it!